Monday, November 17, 2014

Using Your GoPro and Glidecam together

Glidecams help you to get smooth motion in your video footage, and reduce or remove most of the unwanted vibrations you likely get when 'hand-bombing' your GoPro.

Most glidecams, even the smallest ones are not quite designed for a camera as light as a gopro though, so the set up is a little bit different than the typical glidecam setup you'd read in the system's instructions. I'll share some photos of my exact setup in this blog post to aid you in setting your own up in the same way.

Images of the exact setup following in the post below so read on!

I'm using the Glidecam XR-1000. The cheapest glidecam there is (besides the iGlide I guess). The GoPro is the 3-black. With this setup you can achieve dynamic balance as I have.

The images below illustrate my setup.

The gopro is connected using a tripod mount, plus a short connector. Most of the weights that came in the box are under it.

The GoPro and Tripod Mount, plus weights

I bought some of the biggest washers I could find for added weight.

Glidecam weights on the bottom

Front to back balance on the top and the bottom.

I spent a little while tweaking the balance early on, and I didn't fully understand how it all worked together until I read the "A Dynamic Balance Primer" pdf by Jerry Holway written in 2003. A simple google search will find you a copy.